Einstein’s Secret Universe

The November talk will be given by Dr. Ian Jones of the Gravity Group at the University of Southampton. Dr Jones will be talking about recent groundbreaking discoveries in the field of black holes and astrophysics.

On February 11th 2016, something truly remarkable was announced to the world – the detection of gravitational waves from two colliding back holes.  Described as one of the greatest discoveries of the century, it confirmed a prediction made by Albert Einstein himself, exactly one hundred years ago.  In this talk Dr Jones will describe why this really is a big deal, what is means for physics and astronomy, and what we might have to look forward to in the future.  The story will take us to some interesting places, involving lasers, super-precise experiments, and, of course, the black holes themselves.

Dr Ian Jones is an expert on astrophysical sources of gravitational waves. He is also a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the group that in February of this year announced the first ever detection of gravitational waves.